Mermaid, Mermaid In the Sea
by shoyou100
Summary: A fish could be respected and not feared. But a mermaid was feared and never to be loved.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Rune Factory franchise. I do, however, have a copy of Rune Factory 3 somewhere in my bedroom.

This pairing was inspired when I saw Carlos and thought he was hot. And then I saw Pia and thought she was the ditziest and fishiest girl I'd ever seen. So there.

Now let's just get on with the show.

And enjoy.

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><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

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><p><em>The sea is something to be respected. It is something to be revered, yet treated with caution for its ever-changing moods. Its fish, however, is your food and, while they deserve your respect, they do not need your fear. But I must warn you, son. Even with the fish of the sea, there is still something to be careful about. <em>

_Remember, you must never, ever give one your heart_.

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><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

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><p>It was the beginning of summer, a season of sun. And rain.<p>

Carlos wasn't sure why he suddenly remembered his father's words again while standing at the counter in their fishing resort. The place was still closed, but he got up early anyway.

He sighed and raised a hand to push back his blue-green hair. It was the color of the sea, from what his father told him, and as wild as the waves. As such, it took a bandanna made of white cloth and a traditional fisherman's headband to keep his bangs from blowing into his eyes due to wind.

He wasn't wearing the headband right now, since there were no forces of nature to bother him. It lay close by on the counter, waiting for him to slip it on and officially start his day.

Thinking back to what made him wake up so early today, Carlos supposed it was because of an event that was going to happen soon and had been on his mind for the past week.

He was turning eighteen in two days.

In the eastern fisherman tribe, from which his father had migrated, there was a certain tradition where all men of eighteen years were required to have one important thing to truly declare their entrance into adulthood.

A wife.

Was that why his father's words were coming back to him now? No, probably not. Meditating deeply on things had never been his forte. The memory had resurfaced in his mind from old ones that drifted in every now and then, whether he willed them to or not. The resulting confusion, however, was usually the same.

He could never give a fish his heart? Was that even possible to do? The image of a lover snapper suddenly appeared in his mind's eye and he imagined himself hugging the large fish with its gaping mouth and blank bulging eyes.

Shaking his head vigorously, he tried to erase the picture from memory. That was _not_ something he wanted to be doing with a fish. If anything, it should be done with a cute girl…

At that new thought, Carlos sank into the counter with a groan so that his elbow was propped on its surface and his head rested on his palm.

"Man, I wish I had a cute girlfriend."

"Hey!" The usual, boyish shout of his sister, Carmen, came from the other side of the room. "I heard that!"

"What do you care, sister, leaving your poor brother behind to live with some other man!" Carlos shouted back, easily picking up their usual playful banter.

"Well that doesn't mean you can go moping around about why you don't have a girlfriend! If you want one so bad, then go out and get one instead of complaining about it all day." Carmen stuck her tongue out at her brother, as if telling him she won this round.

"You're so cruel, dear sister." Carlos said in mock defeat. He was quiet for a few minutes, listening to his sister tidying up her part of the room.

Suddenly, he had an idea. It just popped right into his head out of nowhere, like an epiphany. Straightening up, he voiced it out loud to his sister. "Since you're so encouraging, how about we have a bet?"

He knew he had her interest piqued when she went quiet.

After a moment or two, she spoke up. "What do I get?" she asked, smiling evilly. She probably thought the money was already hers for the taking. After all, when was the last time he'd won a bet against her?

"The King Fish."

Her quietness, this time, was more out of surprise than mere interest. "Really? You're going to the islands in Privera Forest to catch him? That's a first."

"I decided that you're right." He enjoyed seeing the surprised look on his sister's face. "And I've done enough waiting around in my life."

"You're being very generous on this bet." Carmen said eventually. "What's it on?"

"Love." Carlos answered her shortly. Then, after seeing her raise an eyebrow at him, he continued. "If I can make at least one girl in our town fall in love with me, then I win this bet." He could get a wife out of this. Two birds with one stone!

His sister had a strange look on her face then and he wasn't sure what she was thinking. But after his next words she'd have plenty to say. "And if you lose, you have to dress up in Evelyn's best dress and wear it around town for two weeks."

Carmen's eyes immediately lit up at the challenge. "Fine. Get ready to cough up that King Fish!" Carmen grinned at him. "And since I'm so nice, you have one month to get this done."

"I'll have the King Fish ready before then." Carlos winked at his sister. "Get ready for a grand feast in my name!"

"You mean in your dreams." Carmen made a face at him and he laughed.

"If I want to catch the king fish I'm going to get started now." Carlos whistled as he began gathering up his fishing pole, nets, and bait. He was halfway to the door when his sister ran over to block his way.

"Wait, you aren't going to get some girl fall in love with you first?"

Carlos looked at her, then looked at the fishing pole in his hands, then back at her. "Nope. Fish before girls I'm afraid."

"You idiot!" She slapped him upside the head, though he saw it coming. "That's the kind of attitude that's going to make you lose the bet!" She pinched him on the arm and he made an indignant noise.

"What's your problem?" he demanded. "Making a girl fall in love with me is going to be easier than catching the king fish so fishing is going to be my top priority."

"I bet you don't even know what priority means! Making a girl fall in love with a guy is harder than you think. If you want to make any girl like you, you've got to understand this basic fact!" At these words, Carmen crossed her arms and looked away huffily. Even if she was already married and getting ready to move in her husband's house, she still knew how to throw a tantrum.

"Okay, okay, sis. Gotcha. But, I need time to catch the king fish."

He let her fume for a few minutes and she eventually cooled down with a sigh. "Fine. But your month starts now. I don't think you really get what I'm telling you yet so I'm giving you the chance to see which is harder to do." She didn't say anymore after that and Carlos spent the rest of the day preparing for his trip.

He didn't really get why his sister was arguing with him. So the question was: Which was harder to do, catching a girl or catching a fish?

Surely it was to catch a fish?

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><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

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><p>The next day Carlos set off for the islands where the king fish awaited him.<p>

But first, he needed to stop by Micah's house and ask to borrow one of his magic seeds. In order to reach the island, he needed the lily pad Micah once used to explore the different seasonal dungeons surrounding the town. That was before he ended up falling for Carmen, who was then taken by Aquaticus as a test of Micah's love for her.

Love. Carlos tried saying it out loud, toying with the shape the word made on his mouth, and he said it easily. But could he express it? Especially to someone other than his sister.

And there were different forms of love. Micah wasn't related to Carmen by blood, but he loved her. Could he show another girl that same kind of devotion?

A single drop of rain suddenly fell on his forehead. Momentarily roused from the small whirlwind of questions in his mind, Carlos looked up at the sky. If he went fishing now, would the king fish appear? Perhaps the oversized fish enjoyed this kind of weather.

"Oh no!" He heard a cry come from his right and he whipped his head in its direction. It sounded like a girl.

He saw someone lying on the ground in the distance, but there was something strange about the way they looked, as if their figure was distorted somehow.

He had to go closer to see clearly, but the rain fell harder, obscuring his vision. Sometimes, the weather here was incredibly unpredictable.

"Hold on! I'm coming to help!" He called through the pouring rain.

The girl in the distance, he was pretty sure she was the one who had cried out by now, suddenly pushed herself up. But that wasn't what startled him.

It was her legs. She didn't have any.

Instead, there was a single long and graceful fish's tail where they should've been. Graceful? Carlos wasn't sure why he described it that way, but the word hardly did justice to what little he could see of her through the rain.

"Wait!" He called after her, but she suddenly started hopping away on her tail so quickly that she disappeared out of sight between two houses before he could catch up with her. It was like a fish hopping on land managed to get away from a human running at them with two feet, though she did have a good head start.

He never got a good look at her face, but the shock of pink hair left him with only one name.

"Pia…?" The realization almost rocked him off his feet, but that wasn't what came first. Instead, it was… hurt?

The usually energetic and proud Carlos was gone, only a soaking wet and sobered man was left standing there in the street, looking after the place where the girl had just been. Where had his excitement for the king fish gone so quickly?

As he continued looking at the spot, an old memory began to surface. It happened on the day he turned eight, the third day of Summer.

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><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

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><p>"Happy birthday, Carlos." Blaise gave him his usual gentle smile as he placed a steaming dish into the fisher boy's hands. "Your father will be happy to know that I used the shrimp he gave me to make seafood doria."<p>

"Thanks, mister." the young Carlos replied, using the generic name he used for all men around Blaise's age, except for Wells, who was dubbed gramps instead. "This stuff's my favorite!"

Blaise laughed. "I'm glad you like it."

"Ooh, ooh, me next! Me next!" The five year-old Collette approached him with a tasty looking salmon rice ball in one hand. "Here you go! I made it an hour ago so it's fresh. All you have to do is bite into like…this!" And she ate the whole rice ball in one bite.

"Hey!" Carlos cried indignantly. "You ate my present!"

"Collette." Blaise scolded, looking sternly down at his daughter. "What have I told you about eating other people's birthday gifts?"

"But it looked so good!" She whined.

Rusk was quick to push past her and shove his present in Carlos's face. "Here! Mine's better than hers."

It was some ice cream. Thinking it wouldn't hurt to try, Carlos bit down into it. Immediately, he spit it back out. "Eugh! What did you put in there! It tastes like something gone bad!"

This time, Blaise turned to scold his other child. "Rusk! I told you not to touch the milk in the fridge!"

"Sorry." Rusk apologized sheepishly.

Gagging with little remedy for control, Carlos found himself being sick in front of Marian and her grandmother.

"Hmm, looks sick." The four-year old Marian observed. She paused to look at him. Then, much to his horror, she raised the syringe that was always at her side and squealed excitedly, "Buthday shot!"

Carlos fled from the scene. By the time he stopped running, he had run from Blaise's Diner all the way to the Miyako Inn.

It was there that he heard her laughter for the first time.

He looked up to see who it was. It didn't sound like anyone he knew from town, but the moment he saw her, it left him rooted on the spot.

Before him was a pink-haired girl walking toward him with bare feet, though something that shimmered with the sun's rays covered the skin, starting from her ankles and ending before her toes. Strange appendages protruding from the sides of her head and her wrists, reminding him of the fins on a fish.

Next to her was the little Sakuya, smiling politely at him. When she spoke, he saw a gap where she lost her first tooth. "Happy birthday, Carlos." She presented him a small box wrapped neatly in some brown packaging. "I found this."

Carlos tried not to hesitate before taking the present and murmuring, "Thanks." His eyes strayed from the new girl for a moment to look at the box.

"Open it." Sakuya sounded eager for him to do what he himself had already set his mind out to do.

Carlos could barely keep himself from ripping the box apart in his growing excitement at seeing this legitimate gift. He wasn't able to keep from making a noise of appreciation when he saw the present placed inside the box. "Wow… how did you know I wanted sparkle string?"

"You're a fisher boy. You need poles!" Sakuya smiled at his reaction.

Carlos was about to thank her again when the new girl spoke for the first time.

"You…fish?" Her voice was so soft. It reminded him of the gentle caress of the waves in Dragon Lake.

His eyes went back to look for her reaction as he nodded. What he did get from her, however, was not what he wanted at all.

Her eyes suddenly grew fearful! And she took a step back, putting Sakuya between them. When Carlos reached out as if to touch her to see what was going on, the look in her eyes became one of dislike and it confused him beyond understanding.

"What's wrong, Pia?" Sakuya looked surprised too for a moment. Then understanding entered her eyes and she looked back at him. "She wants you to leave."

Those words frustrated him. "Why!" He demanded. "I didn't do anything to her!"

"Please." Sakuya was starting to plead with him now. Her eyes were apologizing to him.

Carlos, however, refused to budge. He wanted to know what was going on and why this Pia was treating him like this! He took a step towards the pink-haired girl.

His movement gave her a start. Once more, her eyes looked at him fearfully. Everything went quiet for several seconds. And then the girl turned tail and ran, much to Carlos' surprise.

That left Sakuya and him staring at one another. More than a few seconds passed before Sakuya shook her head at him, as if she were disappointed. But in who? The gesture brought out a child's anger from within him.

"What is _up_ with everyone today!" Carlos demanded loud enough to make sure the Pia girl could hear him from inside the Miyako Inn.

Sakuya stayed outside for a little while longer, simply gazing at him, pitying him through those five-year old eyes. Then she turned around and followed after Pia.

Carlos stood there in front of the inn for nearly ten minutes, staring at one of the stone lamps placed on either side of the modest bridge leading to the doorway of the building.

Was it because… he fished?

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><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

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><p>"Hey, Micah." Carlos walked up to his close friend and brother-in-law, who had been busy tending his fields until he heard footsteps and turned around.<p>

"I almost didn't recognize you." Micah laughed good-naturedly. His eyes were alert, however. He must've noticed something was off. "Did something happen?" His friend eyed the equipment in his hands.

Carlos opened his mouth to tell him about the plan to head for Privera Forest and catch the king fish, but something else came out instead.

"It's raining hard today isn't it?"

The question sounded stupid and random, even to _his_ ears, but he waited for Micah's response.

"Yes…" Micah was looking at him like he was trying to figure something out. "Are you alright, Carlos? Do you need anything?"

The last question finally made it through to him and he blinked several times to wake himself up from his own muddled mind. "Right…yeah…" His head cleared, Carlos grinned at his friend. "You think you could lend me your lily pad for a bit? I need it to get to the islands in Privera Forest."

"Sure." Micah replied and reached into his pocket to pull out a small seed. "Just remember to put her back into your pocket at the end of the day after you're done using her so she can rest."

"It's a her?" Carlos took the seed and placed it in his own pocket. "Dude, you never told me these magic seeds have genders."

"Yeah, isn't it something?" Micah laughed. "Once you summon her, you'll figure it out for yourself. So…" He placed his hoe butt-first on the ground and leaned into it slightly. "What are you planning to catch at the islands?"

Carlos chuckled. He supposed all the equipment he was carrying was a giveaway. "The King Fish."

Both Micah's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Even Carmen and I together could barely catch a fish a few feet smaller than the actual size of the King Fish. Maybe you should take a few more magic seeds with you. They'll help protect you and prevent you from being dragged into the water."

"Don't worry, man." Carlos assured his friend. "My sister and I have always been able to hold our breaths longer than most people so it won't hurt to get a little wet."

"Carlos…" His friend sighed. "Then at least promise me you won't jump in after the King Fish or anything like that. Only trust your fishing pole and net, not your hands. I think this might be the one fish you shouldn't wrestle with."

"Yeah, yeah." Carlos shifted from one leg to the other, beginning to feel impatient and eager to get out of Sharance and headed for Privera Forest. His excitement for catching the King Fish was returning.

"Go get 'em." Micah said unexpectedly and put a hand on his shoulder, though he had to reach up slightly to touch him. "And good luck."

"Thanks, bro." Carlos said, anticipation causing him to turn around and walk away faster than he intended. Before he left the Sharance Tree, however, he turned back to wave and Micah waved back. Then he left the tree and Sharance itself behind.

Before him, Privera Forest awaited.

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><p>AN:

Chapter 1...is only... the beginning!

See you next time. Review and comment!


	2. Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER: Rune Factory 3 is a no no. Playing the game is a go go.

I'm too lazy to do credits so I'm just going to do a big huzzah for everybody that favorited and left reviews.

Huzzah!

Enjoy.

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><p><strong>Edit: <strong>Fixed some stuff.

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><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

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><p>That man saw Pia in the rain!<p>

With these thoughts in mind, she hopped inelegantly across the inn's bridge and into the building, not caring that she was leaving a wet mess on the wooden boards, though she would have to clean it all up eventually.

"What's wrong, Pia?" Shino asked. Her hands were poised over the notepad in her hands, interrupted in the middle of recording the inn's finances for the day. "Did someone see you?"

Dripping with rainwater, Pia looked down at her tail and nodded.

Shino sighed. "You've really got to be more careful. It's a good thing mostly everyone in town knows your secret."

Pia nodded again and didn't say anything. Wordlessly, she took off her shawl and hung it up to dry on a rack near the door. Then she walked to the baths to grab one of the mops and clean up the mess at the doorway.

As she walked back, the water on her skin dried, absorbed quickly by her body to replenish her scales' delicate sheen.

"Goodbye, Pia." One of their usual customers walked through the door. Sofia smiled at her. "It isn't nice to see you."

"Ooh! How can you say that?" Pia grumbled. "You always say things like that. I still don't understand you!"

"Hello, Sofia." Shino greeted the girl. "Again, please forgive Pia. She often takes things literally."

"Oh, that's right. Sorry I forgot, Pia." Sofia apologized, momentarily losing using her opposite talk. "I'm going to go take a bath now. Goodbye!"

Pia mumbled a goodbye, but it was left unheard as Sofia rushed for the baths. Everyone was always eager for one, though Pia didn't always like warm baths. She preferred the water temperature to be as cold as…

Pia turned her attention elsewhere and glanced outside. The rain appeared to have slowed somewhat so the sun was sure to come out later in the afternoon. Gradually, her thoughts wandered and the mop nearly slipped from her loose fingers.

Before the rain came, there were clouds.

Earlier, Pia had watched them as they gathered in the sky, dark and ominous, yet lonely at the same time. She could never run fast enough for cover from them, though she knew the reason.

Before even the clouds were formed, there was the sea.

Pia was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of nausea and her breathing quickened as she felt sick to her stomach.

"Pia!" Shino was over at her side instantly. "What is it?"

Looking up at her, Pia saw that the woman's usually calm façade was gone. Instead, worry was etched into her brow.

"It's okay. I just…I just wasn't feeling good. That's all."

Shino, however, read all too easily through her lie. "No, that's not it, is it? Did you remember something, Pia? Tell me the truth. Please."

The woman's eyes were pleading and she held Pia's hands in such a way that she eventually gave in to her words.

"I…" Pia began.

"Heya!" Carmen barreled into the inn dressed in only her swimsuit. Latched to her arm was her blushing and similarly dressed husband. "We're here for a bath!" She exclaimed.

"But not together, Carmen." Micah muttered in embarrassment. "It's against the rules. Hello, Pia, Shino."

"Hello. Such a young couple." Shino chuckled as she stood up. "Just leave the money at the counter after you're done. I need to talk with Pia."

Pia nodded and had been about to walk with Shino to the bedrooms when she heard a few stray sentences from Carmen and Micah's conversation that suddenly had her listening intently.

"…wait 'til my brother catches that king fish. I'll cook you the best meal anyone's ever had once I win it from him."

Pia stopped in her tracks, bringing Shino to a halt as well. Muttering a quick apology to her, Pia turned away from her and approached Carmen before she could enter the baths.

"Carmen," Pia did not realize her voice was already trembling with the beginnings of an uncomfortable anger when she spoke out loud. But then she tried to hide it when she asked her question.

"So your brother has gone to Privera Forest?"

Carmen must've easily sensed something was wrong because she turned around and faced Pia slowly. "Pia…Don't misunderstand…My brother only wants to-."

"He's going to kill Mr. King!" Pia yelled, startling the other people in the room. They hadn't expected her to be able to raise her voice so much. Even Pia, in some distant corner of her mind, wondered why she was acting more hysterical than usual. However, that wasn't going to stop her from doing what needed to be done.

Shino took a step toward her and so did Carmen and Micah. She knew they were all going to make an attempt to calm her down.

However, she maintained a steady look at each one of them individually and made sure they knew that they weren't going to get very far in doing so. She was too determined to stop Carlos from catching one very powerful and very large fish that commanded most of the other ones in the waters around Privera Forest.

If Mr. King was defeated and captured, then… Pia shook lightly with her bottled anger. He even had relatives in Dragon Lake who praised him for his strength and size. Young fish often told her with pride that Mr. King was their role model and they were all going to grow up to become just like him.

So if their role model was caught, cooked, and eaten like any other fish in the wild, what would they do? Pia shuddered to think how much Mr. King's death could affect the fish kingdom of Sharence. It would make them all the easier to catch. Then the population could start dropping drastically and then…!

Pia shook her head from side to side to clear it. Now wasn't the time to let her thoughts get in her way. She would have plenty of chances to let the despicable fisherman know them loud and clear.

She rushed to her room to grab her Dekash.

While Privera Forest was a beautiful place, there were still monsters roaming around and Pia had made the mistake before of not bringing something to protect herself. Luckily, she had Gaius make her one out of a tuna. Even now she still prayed for forgiveness from the fish who had given his life for her sake.

The Miyako Inn was far behind her by now and no one had come after her even though they all knew exactly where she was headed. Good, she thought, that meant she had permission, though Shino would give her a good lecture or two after she came back.

For a moment, Pia considered turning back and apologizing to Shino for her earlier behavior. And maybe tell her and Sakuya goodbye. Pia winced at the second set of lectures she would probably receive for leaving Sakuya behind without saying anything.

Somewhere along the way, Pia realized she had forgotten her shawl back at the inn so maybe she should just hurry back and pick it up…

"No! This is the sake of the fish." Pia reminded herself. "Sacrifices are always necessary when it comes to them."

But now she attracted the attentions of the few people traversing the streets. They would glance at her scaly clothing and then at her fins. Even if she had already walked the streets of Sharance for more than ten years, she still drew a few stares. After all, her clothes had been tailored to match the look and feel of her tail so when she transformed in the rain, the material would stretch to accommodate the change. The designer…

She no longer remembered who it was.

The shawl, however, belonged to Shino and it was the one she had draped over Pia's body when she and Sakuya found her beached on one of the shores in Oddward Valley. The woman had remarked that Pia must've traveled far in order to get here and must be exhausted. They took her in after that and treated her like she was family. And gave her a home.

A family. A home. Did she ever have those before she met Shino or Sakuya?

Daria's pretty house came into sight, shifting Pia's attention away from her thoughts. She was now on the outskirts of Privera Forest and she came to a stop before the entrance to the first part of the natural dungeon.

"I won't let you hurt a scale on Mr. King." She promised her enemy. "You have fished your last fish, Carlos."

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><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

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><p>The fisherman sneezed once.<p>

Rubbing his nose, Carlos wondered if he was coming down with a cold. But no worries! He brought several packets of cold medicine with him. Carmen was probably going to figure it out eventually that he had cleaned out the first aid cabinet, as well as the fridge.

Oh well, more work for Micah, he supposed.

Carlos paused in his work to survey what he'd finished so far. The small wooden shack was coming along nicely. He had the foundation down already and should have the roof finished by tonight. Gaius had given him a few tips on carpentry and while he didn't end up becoming the best barn-builder of all time, he could at least manage a few small shelters to keep him dry for the next week or so.

Food was going to be the next biggest issue since, no matter how much Carlos wished it, he couldn't eat fish raw. They would have to be cooked, at the very least over a fire.

Twenty minutes passed before he stopped his work again, only this time he was interrupted.

He heard the shifting of sand from behind him and immediately went on the alert. He had defeated the few monsters roaming the island and had closed up the portal temporarily. "Who's there!" Carlos demanded, dropping his hammer to pick up his water spear.

"I am!"

The voice nearly caused him to drop his weapon. Carlos spun around, shock written all over his features. He wanted to say something but, for once, the ever-talkative man couldn't speak a word.

Her scales captured and reflected the sunlight, looking for all the world like some other-worldly being rising out of the waters. He had to put a hand up to keep from being blinded by the light.

Peering at her from behind his hand, he saw that her hair, even thought it was soaked, didn't lose its shape, as if the water couldn't touch the individual strands. Then his eyes roved to rest on hers before he realized that was a mistake.

He was immediately trapped in her gaze, trapped like she was physically touching his chin to hold him in place.

Her eyes... they were a darker, reddish version of her hair and they stared at him with a passion that was different for every person. And with Pia…

Carlos found the strength to look away. He licked his lips, realizing they had gone dry. A single look...that was all it took. His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears when he spoke out.

"Why are you here?"

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>Pia watched the fisherman as he hammered away at something that looked like a small hut.<p>

So he was trying to build a house? That suited Pia just fine! She would stop him before he even got started on his fishing.

It looked like he planned to stay here for more than a few days and it made Pia glad to know that Mr. King was such a tough fish. It would take more than one man to haul that fish out of the sea. Carlos, however, was not a normal man. She would have to be extra careful.

There was just something about him that made him stick out easily in a crowd so Pia always seemed to know when he was in the vicinity. Even though she hardly knew him, she could tell there was more to this fisherman than what people normally saw in one glance. It was because of this particularly special aura he exhibited that her eyes were often drawn toward him no matter how fast or far she tried to run from him.

With some effort, Pia forced herself out of her thoughts. She had to focus! If she didn't stop him now, it would take even more work to stop him later.

Freshly determined once more, Pia pulled herself onshore. The movement alerted Carlos and he called out to know who was there.

Pia did her best to stand up while she still had her tail before she declared, "_I_ am!"

He had his spear in hand when he turned to look at her. Was he looking to fight Pia?

The thought turned into a challenge and she stared him down, mentally preparing herself for a possible battle between man and fish. She would give her all for Mr. King and stop this man from committing a terrible crime.

"Why are you here?"

His question made Pia want to sigh. Did he really have no idea why she came all the way here with her dekash strapped to her back?

"I won't let you hurt, Mr. King." She stated, planting her tail firmly into the ground. "I'm here to stop you."

At first, his eyes looked confused, but then it seemed he finally understood what she was talking about because he replied, "I don't know how much your Mr. King means to you, Pia, but for me, he's just another fish. And it's always been my dream to catch him."

Upon hearing his reply, Pia grew solemn. "Then I will have to _make_ you stop."

She brandished her dekash, sliding it out of the strap on her back, and settled into an offensive stance Shino taught her just a few weeks ago. Pia's skin had dried already, transforming her back into human form. To successfully execute the move, she needed two feet.

"You're going to fight me, Pia?" Carlos asked her, but Pia knew it wasn't really a question because he lowered himself closer to the ground in a style that Shino once mentioned was similar to the one Pia knew now.

"You come from the east too?" Pia asked out of her own curiosity.

He surprised her, however, when he answered her question. "My father did."

She nearly broke her stance because of it, but then she shook herself, waking up to reality. This wasn't time for questions or answers. It was time for battle!

Pia waited until she had circled within striking distance before she made her first move.

In a burst of speed, she swung her dekash for a low blow at his feet. He dodged and blocked her attack easily, but Pia had been expecting him to. Following his evasion, she forced the tuna nose first into the sand to stabilize it well enough for her use it as a pole.

Carlos struck out at her side to catch her off-guard and Pia swung around on her weapon to avoid the attack, only to notice something that nearly made her stop fighting, but her body was too caught up in the heat of battle to stop her onslaught.

Kicking off from the ground, she got enough momentum to lash out with both feet at Carlos's chest.

Only to have him literally catch her feet! His spear was on the floor, where he had dropped it earlier and most likely on purpose so he had his bare hands free. Using her momentum and quickly changing his direction, he applied his own force in the same direction she had kicked out.

Both of them landed hard in the sand, but Pia knew she probably took most of the fall. The air was knocked out of her and the edges of her vision went dark for a moment before her breathing stabilized again. Somewhere in her mind, her basest instinct told her she had been defeated. But that didn't mean she had to accept it!

Pia tried to get back up, but Carlos was on top of her in a flash. She felt his weathered hands push down on both her arms, higher up on her shoulders so he had greater control over her movements. He used his body weight to pin her down.

They were both breathing hard, but Pia felt like she was breathing the hardest out of either of them.

Despite her incapacitated state, she held a steady gaze on him, letting her eyes rest on his neck at first. He had a bump there like any other man and it bobbed up and down once as he swallowed hard. Then her eyes roamed from his neck, past his lips, to his eyes and they locked gazes. She never really noticed that they were the same shade as his hair, a blue-green like…

Pia broke eye contact, knowing her thoughts were straying towards dangerous waters.

When she finally looked back at him, she kept her eyes trained on his mouth, simultaneously slowing her breathing and clearing her mind. There was one question left, however, that burned at the back of her throat. Why had the fisherman attacked her with the wrong end of his spear?

Pia gathered her wits and made eye contact with him once again, determined to get her answer. When she saw his expression, however, the words died in her mouth.

The look he gave her was strange. It was strange in the way that it made her feel tingly from her stomach to her toes and sent blood rushing to her cheeks as her face burned in a mixture of embarrassment and something else equally mortifying.

"Ca…" She was in the middle of saying his name when expression in his eyes grew darker and her voice trailed off.

Hide, her body screamed at her, run away as fast as possible! His gaze was no longer normal.

However, she may have been too late to escape.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>Everything went wrong the moment he had to touch her.<p>

She was a mermaid and Carlos always assumed that they were cold as the waters they resided in. So when he grabbed her arms to push her down, he was thrown off guard by how warm she was. Her body temperature was even higher than his and putting pressure on her arms only exposed his hands to the smallest throbs of her heartbeat. They were quick and light, not so much like a bird's, but more rapid like the anxious breaths of a fish out of water.

How would it feel if he pressed that heartbeat to places other than his hands? The moment he asked that question his imagination ran wild and he suddenly pictured himself capturing that rhythm with his lips, running his tongue along the skin, tangling his hands sensuously in her hair. Would that make her heart beat faster?

Heat pooled in his stomach, burning it, twisting it and Carlos recognized what he was experiencing then. It was something that had never affected him as badly as this.

Desire.

There was no other explanation for his sudden and unexpected raving madness to close the distance between their bodies and... consume her. The desire was so strong that it _hurt_.

But before he could do anything to relieve himself of the overwhelming fervor running throughout his body, Pia decided his next move for him.

She kneed him as hard as she could directly in the groin.

It was like someone took his hammer and slammed him in the face. Keeling over, Carlos saw stars in the corners of his eyes as he fell pathetically over to one side. One of his hands covered his crotch while the other was placed feebly on the sand in an attempt to hold himself up.

He failed miserably.

"Don't you dare touch me ever again!" Her voice barely penetrated the haze of pain blanketing his mind, but he managed to understand the gist of what she was telling him.

When he tried to say something, however, all that came out of his mouth was a sound several octaves higher than his normal voice. But, despite this particularly unmanly reaction, even worse was the fact that he was in too much pain to even feel mortified about it. Carlos desperately wished for unconsciousness. Anything was better than this incredible agony.

The he forced himself to let go of his crotch and pull himself to a kneeling position before he retched and lost his breakfast all over the sand.

Pia just stood there, watching him get sick.

"I'm not sorry for doing that to you." She stated in voice that was matter-of-fact.

Carlos tried to make a coherent reply back to her, but a groan came out instead.

She continued. "But I'm sorry for your pain."

The throbbing still wasn't gone, but it had receded enough for her words to fully register in his mind.

"Yet you still want your Mr. King?" Carlos managed to ground out without making any extra noise, but his stomach was still heavily unstable.

"I won't let you kill him." Her reply was stubborn and unyielding.

"Not even after you kicked me?" Carlos staggered to his feet only to kneel back down from a wave of nausea. Was this what pregnant women felt like all the time?

"You should not have looked at Pia like that."

Oh, he almost forgot about that. The longing to dry-retch really put a man's thoughts somewhere else. However, he still ended up nodding his head in understanding.

Any girl, under the circumstances, would've reacted in the same way.

"Then we're even." Carlos said and he made one final effort to get back to his feet. Once he managed to do it without stumbling, he continued. "And the King Fish is fair game."

A moment of silence stretched out between them, allowing Carlos some time to recover and gingerly shift his weight from one foot to the other so he could test his stability. Pia's expression gradually grew more and more cross.

"If you kill Mr. King, other fish will die too." She was suddenly looking at him more intensely than he had ever seen her before. It almost sent the heat pooling back into his loins. Almost. His crotch still remembered her knee. "So you can go ahead and _try_. Your fishing poles won't get one bite!"

Her energy captivated him.

Carlos blinked once and had to tear his eyes away from hers. This lust! Had he always had this hunger within him like some wild animal? Or was it possible a mermaid had the power of seducing a man until he went mad with desire?

The intensity in Pia's eyes, however, was anything but implying enticement.

He doubted she even knew how to tempt a man, as innocent, naive, and straightforward as she was. So where did this attraction for her come from? And why was it happening now with a girl he hardly understood or knew?

"Go away, Pia." He could barely contain the longing from being laced into his words, but his voice came out sounding huskier than usual anyway. He chanced a look to see her reaction and saw that her expression had turned blank, as if his words were still trying to register in her mind. Taking this as a good sign, he continued. "I don't want to end up hurting you." At the very least he meant what he said.

His last few words, however, brought color rushing to her cheeks and looked ready to unleash a wall of righteous fury. However, she made a visible effort, the clenching of her fists, to keep from doing so and simply said one word to him.

"Fine."

Then she turned around and marched away, away from him and back to the water. Once she reached the edge of the beach, Pia turned to look at him one last time.

"You will regret making Pia angry."

Then, without another glance back, she dove into the water and disappeared from sight.

* * *

><p>AN:

More interesting things to come. I have big plans for this story.

As for my main adventure, Hero of Unova, yeah... I'll get going on it.

See ya.


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMER: No own Rune Factory 3 franchise (I always feel like typing Runescape for some reason...)

_Credits_:

- Thank you Wrymseeker for your feedback! It's criticism that helps me as a writer and gives me a heads up as well on the types of chapters you prefer. However, I am afraid you might not like this chapter either because of how "dark" it may prove to be.

- japaneserockergirl, thank you for your reader consistency.

- Mockingjaybird, I hope you continue to enjoy this story.

Enjoy.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>"Never underestimate a mermaid."<p>

Carlos muttered darkly under his breath as he pulled up his fourth broken fishing line since early this morning. The edge of the string was cleanly cut, highly unlikely for a fish's teeth to have managed.

He cursed softly to himself as he reached into his emergency fishing kit and pulled out another fishing line, along with a hook. Fixing the fishing pole took short work, but he was already one-fourth of the way through his back-up supplies, which was the real danger. And having used the lily pad to fish in deeper waters, Carlos knew he was already at a geographical disadvantage.

With the sun currently glaring down on the water's surface, he couldn't decipher any shadows that gave away the mermaid's position, let alone the King Fish's.

At first, she only released all the fish that caught on to his hook. When she finally decided it was probably too much of a hassle, she resorted to simply cutting it with her dekash, which she had originally left behind the other day. It was gone, of course, by this morning. Carlos was still surprised she hadn't broken down his shelter while he was still inside. At least this over-sized fish knew how to play fair.

"A fish. Do mermaids count as fish?" Carlos murmured his thought out loud as he drifted the lily pad further out from the island's shore, placing him in sight of the monsters roaming the forested area south of the island.

He was about to release his new line when he stopped himself in mid-throw. What was the point? This new line was going to get cut just like all the others if he didn't try something different.

Carlos suddenly spied a darker region in the water, indicating the growth of algae and other aquatic plants. If he released his line there, it might tangle up in the growth. However, that also meant Pia was probably going to avoid that area so she wouldn't become entangled as well.

It was worth a shot.

He drifted the lily pad a little closer before he released the line. It landed with a soft splash, creating small ripples that were sure to have alerted Pia to the exact spot the hook landed.

Waiting for any immediate tugs that indicated his line was being cut, Carlos put one foot in front of the other in order to balance himself and prepare himself for an intense tug-of-war.

The next half hour, however, was miraculously uneventful and Carlos grinned at his small victory. His plan seemed to have worked.

More than an hour passed. No bites yet. Carlos wasn't fazed by the long wait, however. There had been times when he had had to wait up to three hours for a pull, which was a common for fishing in shallower waters.

Personally, he doubted the King Fish would be interested in feeding in shallow water either. However, he still needed to catch at least _one_ fish so he could have something to eat today. And if Pia thought she could both starve and frustrate him out of catching the King Fish, then she was going to be proved wrong.

Suddenly, he felt a significant tug on his line, which surprised him, but his feet stayed planted firmly.

Once Carlos started reeling the line in, he realized the pull wasn't as strong as before, which was suspicious.

Was this another one of Pia's pranks?

He recovered the line as quickly as he could, all the while feeling unsure of what he was going to find on the hook. When the end of the line broke through the surface of the water, Carlos got a good look at what he caught.

Dangling on the hook, its tentacles still wriggling, was a half-eaten squid.

"PIAAAAAAAA!"

Carlos's scream of rage echoed through the forest for all to hear.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>Lounging amongst the soft algae, Pia watched with amusement as the unsuspecting fisherman reeled up the remainder of her lunch.<p>

Success!

Pia swam away, however, before the fisherman discovered he'd been tricked. She was almost halfway to her secret underwater hideout when the sound of her own name penetrated the waters and Pia glanced back to see if anything interesting happened.

What she saw brought a satisfied smile to her lips. Any fish who might've gathered enough courage to venture out again into the open immediately scattered again upon hearing the loud and sudden sound, ending all hope Carlos might've had in getting a proper meal.

Pia left bubbles of laughter in her wake.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>That night, Carlos fumed miserably in his small shack, a bowl full of half-eaten squid in one hand and another filled with fresh water gathered straight from the lake. A pitiful fire burned in the small clearing he had made in the grassy area of the island.<p>

If it had rained tonight… Carlos didn't finish the thought, but continued eating his meager meal of squid. If he cooked them well enough on a stick over the fire, they managed to stay relatively safe in his stomach. He figured this out, of course, after he had vomited out the last several half-eaten squids because he hadn't kept them long enough over the fire.

"You think you've won, but just wait." Carlos muttered murderously, picturing in his head what mermaid sashimi might look like.

Out of all the people he had met, this girl could be the only one he could possibly consider as his mortal enemy. Everything she stood for was completely against the very core of his existence. It was almost a miracle that either of them could've coexisted for the past ten years or so. And now she was fighting to stop him from accomplishing something that was less of a reason for a bet than it was of a dream he'd had since he was very young.

So why had his body betrayed him like that yesterday?

The question stumped him worse than his dilemma of not being able to catch the king fish and, in his momentary distraction, he allowed his water bowl to slip from his hand and overturn on the fire he had painstakingly worked on for a full hour and a half.

He cursed as the flame, which was feeble to begin with, was extinguished with a hiss. He still had a few pieces of squid to cook! Carlos stood up with the bowl of now inedible food and walked over to the island's edge to dump it out. After he finished cleaning the container out, he looked at the sky to gauge how much time was left in the day.

It was probably almost the nineteenth hour, as the stars and moon didn't usually come out in the summer until later at night.

Only a few more hours before he turned eighteen.

Carlos walked back to his shelter, his footsteps a little heavier than before.

All around him the sounds of the night were at their loudest now that the light of the fire was gone. The darkness of the night, however, was kept at bay by the stars shining in the cloudless sky and the waxing crescent moon.

Carlos found himself gazing up at these tiny points of light above him. For some reason, they calmed the unhappiness he was feeling all of a sudden. The rush of emotion was unexpected and caught Carlos off guard. After nearly eighteen years of life, tomorrow seemed different from all the rest. So much had changed since the days of simple laughter and casual present-giving that Carlos almost couldn't believe there was going to be a time when things weren't going to be like that anymore.

He was not looking forward to his birthday.

Carlos leaned against the wood of his shelter, feeling it scrape against his back. He thought about trying to go to sleep and actually laid down on his cot in an attempt to do so. However, his mind continued to work and surmise, much more than usual.

In his mind, the reason for his lack of eagerness to grow one day older was loud and clear. It was a combination of several things, the topmost one being his fisherman tribe's tradition of marriage to demonstrate manhood. Why eighteen? Nineteen would've been just as good!

Another part of it was the bet with his sister to get a girl to fall in love with him. He definitely made that one because of he had been thinking about marriage and assumed he could get it all done through a wager. If anyone else had been there at the time he did that, they would've called him stupid.

And the last part... Pia.

Carlos sat up, unable to bear the strain on his mind any longer.

That person didn't belong in his head!

He got up and reached for his net. In the darkness it resembled a large lumpy mess, but it didn't take long for him to untangle it. After straightening out the knots, he approached the beach and waded as far as he could into water.

The water soaked into his clothes and the night wind blew picked up and blew hard into him, but Carlos was hardly bothered by the cold. His mind was focused solely on the net clutched in his hands.

He braced his feet for the throw, standing with them shoulder width apart, one foot slightly in front of the other. Then he stayed like that for a moment, simply feeling the push and pull of the waves and the exhalations of the wind on his body. It felt good, natural, almost exhilarating to a great extent.

Finally, he flung the net as hard and far as he could into the length of the lake. It landed with a soft splash, hardly disturbing the surface of the water, only a few ripples evidence of its intrusion. Then, latching on to the left over slack so he could guide the net into place, he evened it out until it spanned a good length of the beach. It was deep enough in the water to reach even the lover snappers that preferred to stay closer to the lake's bottom. And it was far enough to reach half-way between the island and the forest.

After everything was put in its place, Carlos remained standing in the water for a long time, watching the net sink lower and lower until he could see only a faint trace of its shadow in the waters.

Eventually, he stirred because his body told him it was getting late and he needed the rest. After all, he might get lucky with the net and end having a match with the King fish the very next day. Yes, he wouldn't want to miss out on that.

Carlos left the water, his clothes dripping on to the sand. When he reached his shelter, he stripped down to his underwear and hung his shirt and pants up to dry.

In his mind, he wasn't thinking about his birthday, his dilemmas, or even about what to expect for the next day. He was feeling weightless, unburdened.

As he laid down on his cot, pulling a small blanket over his body, Carlos closed his eyes, breathing in deeply and exhaling. Before he fell asleep, however, something fell from his closed eyelid and dropped on to the rough material of the cot.

A single tear. His last one as a boy.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>Pia woke up the next morning feeling a little…off.<p>

She shook her fins. She shook her head. She kicked her tail back and forth. Everything on her body seemed fine so why did she feel so strange today?

Pia took several practice laps in the waters of the large underwater cavern she had staked out as her secret hideout. She surfaced to take a breath of air and refill the oxygen circulating in her system before diving deep for the cavern's exit.

She was off to find this morning's breakfast.

When she left the cavern behind, she noticed the waters were quieter than usual today. Why was that?

Pia looked left and right, but didn't see anything menacing swimming in the water nearby. Surprisingly, when she first met Mr. King, she had discovered that he wasn't that type of fish. He didn't actually eat other fish even though he looked so big, but ate squid instead, which was why so many fish respected and looked up to him.

Suddenly, she spied a familiar shape in the water, suspended and wriggling, showing that it was very much alive. Just as the thought of her ultimate enemy had been crossing her mind, there it was. The squid! And this one was _hers_.

Pia raced for the small, desperately struggling squid, her stomach growling in anticipation of her prey.

Desperately struggling? Her brain sparked this line of thought as she drew closer to the squid. Against what?

The answer to these questions, however, came much too late and Pia found herself entangled before her mind could fully articulate what just happened to her.

She was trapped in a net!

Pia fought and kicked and punched, but it only made things worse as she got more and more tangled up. She had had plenty of experience with fishing poles, but not nets. And she left her dekash back at the cavern too!

Frustration caused her to continue struggling a little while longer before she finally calmed herself down.

Pia relaxed her body, allowing herself to drift in the water, and took a good look at her situation.

It didn't look good at all.

The knots of the net were wrapped tightly around her tail and snagged on to her fins, securing her firmly. She was close enough to the surface to see the dawn's light streaming through, but the rope inhibited her movements so she didn't have enough power to kick up and break through.

She had more than a few hours, however, before she needed to replenish her oxygen again. Perhaps she could figure things out and wriggle her way slowly out of the net and go back for her dekash so she could destroy the abomination once and for all. Or so she thought.

Half an hour later…

The net hadn't budged an inch! Pia gave up at her attempts to untangle herself and kicked her tail exasperatedly, only to feel a squeeze of the ropes in return. She should've listened to her gut this morning.

What to do, what to do? Pia looked at her options and realized one she should've done earlier, except she had been so busy trying to get out with her own strength.

But there was her answer. She didn't _have_ to do it all on her own strength.

"Help me!" Pia called out into the water, the pitch of her voice adjusting to send waves of information to all fish in the vicinity. "Help me _please_! I'm in trouble!"

She received no reply at first and no fish approached, either because they were too scared of the net or they simply weren't strong enough to aid her in any way.

Then she received a faint reply.

Pia turned as best as she could in the direction of the approaching fish. She made out a long, thin figure in the distance and was excited to recognize the body of the needlefish. Perhaps this was one of the many she had chatted with before and he might still remember her.

Even from a considerable distance, she could identify the razor sharp point of the fish's beak with no trouble. With it, he could easily cut through the net for her.

At first, Pia thought her luck was changing. She gave a whoop of happiness and grinned widely at the advancing fish.

And then her smile slowly faded as he swam closer, enough for her to get a better look at the suddenly very lethal looking beak and the hostile eyes.

This wasn't just any needlefish. As he closed in on her, Pia's mind turned to panic. This was an adult, fully grown and nearly three feet long, which was a large size for his species. And now that he knew she saw him for what he truly was, his previous reply in aiding her now came as one of cruel amusement.

"Look what I have here. A mermaid." His message rang in her receptors loud and clear as he eventually swam up to face her.

She wasn't sure how to respond to that so she decided to give begging a try. "No, please." It didn't take much to put fear in her voice because she was already afraid for her life. "Don't do it. Just leave me be."

She was completely powerless against this big bully, but it probably wouldn't be smart to threaten him next because then he would gut her right on the spot out of spite.

"Oh? I thought you mermaids always thought yourselves too high and mighty to beg for your pathetic lives?"

Pia had been in the middle of devising a plan to get out of this situation when the predator's words penetrated her thoughts.

"You've met others like me before?"

The needlefish was in front of her now so she looked into his cold eyes, waiting for his answer.

He didn't say anything for a while, but simply looked at her as if he was considering something.

Finally, he said. "Why should I tell you something like that when I'm about to kill you?"

Then he violently thrust his beak forward and pierced right through the mermaid's soft flesh.

Pia screamed.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>He heard the first cry for help as a bug flying around his head.<p>

Carlos slapped groggily at his ear, expecting to hit something six-legged and crush the annoying bugger, but felt nothing. His instinctive reaction to slap at his head consequently resulted in his eventual rise out of bed. Technically, he had just slapped himself awake, but it wasn't like he was going to tell anyone about that. Ever.

He blinked several times in the light of dawn, his eyes gradually adjusting to its brightness.

So if that hadn't been the sound of a bug, what was it? No other sensation could be used to describe what had tickled his ear, other than the low hum of an insect. Was it a figment of his imagination? But he heard it. He was sure.

Then something in Carlos's brain seemed to click into place. The sound, whatever it had been, had had the slightest tone of urgency. He didn't know how he knew what kind of _tone_ a low humming sound in his ear could make, but some part of his brain was translating it as…

A call for help.

Carlos was up with his spear in hand before his mind could even fully register what he was doing.

It was a call for help… from the water? Pia? It sounded crazy when he thought about it, but it also made sense in its own way.

"Pia, are you in trouble?"

And then the second cry _pierced_ through his mind with ten times the intensity of the first, only it wasn't urgency this time but pure terror.

He was sprinting for the water in a matter of seconds, immediately acting on her distress signal. There were no questions asked, no resistance, not a thought as to _why_ he was running to save her even though she hated him.

"Pia!" He called as he waded in. This was where he'd cast his net. Had she gotten caught in it? "Pia, answer me!"

He got his answer through another call, although this one was much weaker than before, but it was enough! Carlos whipped his head in the direction that was conveyed to him through a single cry. Somehow, he could approximate Pia's general location in the water.

Carlos dove in, the water closing in over his head and muffling everything. However, he was taken aback when Pia's cries reached his ears loud and clear like she was speaking to him on land.

The net.

More than a few feet ahead of him, Carlos saw the mermaid completely entangled in the meshwork.

And she was bleeding.

At the sight of her blood, Carlos was suddenly struck by a deep, basic anger that welled up inside him. It was almost irrational, growing and growing until it filled him with the wild desire to kill. Just to kill.

And then the fish responsible for her pain swam into view. A needlefish.

Carlos kicked back, propelling himself forward. His spear, however, was held with the blade close to his body. No, his target wasn't the fish.

Slicing through the ropes of the net, he set Pia free from her bonds. Immediately, upon her release, she flicked her tail and swam for the surface.

The needlefish turned to go after her, but Carlos thrust out at it with his spear, momentarily claiming its attention.

Your opponent is me! His message was clear.

The fish lashed out at him with its jagged beak, part of it mostly likely broken off in Pia's wound, but made it no less of a danger.

Carlos turned his spear sideways and brought it up to intercept the blow all in one move. The needlefish was thrown off position, leaving its side wide open for him to retract his spear and stab out to inflict a serious and debilitating wound into the needlefish's side.

The fish wasn't about to let things end like that, however. It suddenly flailed so violently that Carlos loosened his grip on the spear's handle and it slipped out of his hands.

He had left a huge opening! The needlefish lashed out one last time with the remainder of its strength and Carlos felt the beak penetrate the left side of his chest, close to the heart. Not fatal, but the waters around him was suddenly colored with the redness of his blood. He was losing too much too rapidly.

Air. Air, he needed air.

As time seemed to slow down around him, Carlos saw that the needlefish was still now and its body was gradually sinking into the lake's depth under the weight of his spear. The water was red, but whether it was only his blood or a mixture of his and Pia's, he wasn't sure. His vision blurred as he looked up.

The surface never seemed so far away.

It was then Carlos realized that he was going to die here and it filled him with a rush of regret, fear, and disappointment. Was this how things were going to end, before anything even started?

Suddenly, he saw a large figure swimming towards him at a high speed. Or was it slow? He couldn't tell anymore.

As Carlos drifted on the brink of consciousness, he felt a pair of slender arms wrap under each of his shoulders. Before he could look to see where he was being taken, however, he finally fell unconscious and his eyelids lowered until they closed, rendering him oblivious to the world around him.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>Pia dragged his body on to the sand, struggling as her tail kept slipping.<p>

When she finally had him in a secure spot on the beach, she looked back to see the trail of blood both of them had left behind, though most of it had been his.

Now looking down at Carlos's chest, she touched the wound there lightly. A normal girl might've flinched and averted her gaze, but Pia moved on from the puncture wound to look for any others she might've missed. Seeing none, she brought her attentions back to the injury that had caused Carlos to pass out.

If she didn't do something now, he was going to die soon, even if the loss of blood from the wound had slowed. Because he was already missing too much.

Pia started noticing the slow drip of her own blood on to the sand and knew that she would have to take out the needlefish's beak from her side eventually, though it wasn't much of a danger since it had missed the important parts of her body. But for Carlos…

She touched the area where his heart was supposed to be.

The wound was much too close. A fresh wave of bleeding could start any moment now and her words proved true when she saw the fluid begin seeping out from the hole.

This man saved her life. Was she going to just let him die after doing so?

She got up and hopped as fast as she could over to Carlos's shelter.

No, she wasn't.

It didn't take her long to find a small knife in his belongings. Hopping back to the unconscious man, Pia poised the knife over her wrist.

"This isn't enough for what you've done for me, but I will repay you as best as I can in the future." She vowed, then slit her wrist deep enough for the blood to ooze out without difficulty. She quickly brought the self-inflicted injury up to her lips and took in a mouthful of her blood.

Then Pia bowed her head down to position herself over Carlos's lips. She studied them for a moment before doing anything. They were deathly pale and that was all she needed to see.

Pia brought her hand up to his jaw to squeeze his mouth so they opened up before she pressed her lips to his and delivered the blood down his throat.

Finally, after the deed was done, Pia placed one bloody hand down on the stab wound in his chest and did her best to staunch it, stall it, prevent him from losing more blood, and to wait.

That was all she had left to do. Wait.

Suddenly, the skin beneath her fingers grew very hot as if Carlos had contracted an abrupt fever. In his unconscious state, he still managed to let out a groan as his body alerted him to the intrusion of a foreign substance in his body.

Then the miracle began to happen.

The hole started to mend itself as new cells grew rapidly to heal the muscle and tissue torn by the needlefish's beak. Pia could feel it all happen with her own hand, which brought to her a most wonderful and relieved feeling.

When the process was over, Pia removed her hand to see no trace of the wound. Good. Her work here was done. But when she tried getting back up, her legs crumpled beneath her. Oh, her tail turned back already. Had she stayed out of the water for that long?

Her vision blurred.

"Darn, I think I let myself bleed out too much." She whispered before she slowly started leaning to one side.

Then she fell over completely, landing sideways next to the man who had been her enemy not too long ago, but was now someone she owed a large debt.

Her eyes could barely focus in on his face.

Oh well, since things ended up this way, she might as well follow it through to the end.

At this, Pia felt herself smile before she fell into a deep and senseless state of mind.

* * *

><p>AN:

Yo yo, I'm going to get off my butt and start working on the Hero of Unova chapter now so Mermaid will probably take more than a few weeks to update.

I have school. I have homework. I have college apps. I have friends. I have a life.

So I'll see all of you at the end of that...just kidding. We'll see.


	4. Chapter 4

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rune Factory 3.

_Credits:_

- Review and Comment. I like reading what you guys write.

Enjoy.

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><p><strong>Edit: <strong>Fixed a _lot _more stuff. I even added an entirely new scene in here. Please read :)

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><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

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><p>The sand was like a desert against his skin.<p>

Carlos felt a ripple of need for water roll through his body. As it rolled, the need grew and grew in intensity until his body began to burn all over.

An anguished groan tore from his searing throat and Carlos cracked one eye open, only to be greeted by the soft light of the crescent moon.

The ocean was to his left and he rolled towards the sound of its gently lapping waves, the waters enticing him with their promise of a cool salvation.

His path was blocked by a body.

Who…?

But he recognized her before long. "Pia." Her name came as a cracked whisper.

Looking at her silhouette in the dark for just a little longer, Carlos dragged himself past her, closer to the water. There was no point in checking her for wounds if he could barely stand on both legs and, somehow, he knew the water was going to make everything better.

The refreshing liquid that splashed on to his dried skin made Carlos nearly cry out in relief. It was like life was literally flowing back into him and was empowering his body to function properly once more. It wasn't long before Carlos was standing back on his own two feet and, as he flexed his hands open and closed in front of him, he noticed something strange about the space between his fingers.

They were reflecting the moonlight.

Intrigued, Carlos touched one of the spaces with his finger and was stunned to feel resistance. It was a thin film of skin! He touched the rest of them to see if they were the same and it came as no surprise to him to feel the same resistance from each one.

"What's happened to me?" Carlos murmured as he flexed his hands once more, watching the extra layer of skin fold into itself when he closed his fist, fitting so easily between his fingers that he never would've guessed they were there unless he opened his hands.

He lifted up one foot and saw that his toes were also connected in a similar fashion.

What had Pia done to him?

"Pia!" He cursed when he realized she was still unconscious and in need of help. Rushing back to her side, his stomach lurched when he spied a dried, dark stain on the sand that seemed to have pooled from her stomach.

His heart beating so rapidly that his breath caught in his throat, Carlos lifted Pia's arm to get a better look at her injury.

Only to find smooth skin, not a scale out of place.

"What…?" Carlos muttered in disbelief. He swore he had seen the water almost drowning in Pia's blood when he dove in to rescue her.

Injured or not, however, she wasn't opening her eyes. And that was still something to worry about.

Carlos slid his hands under either side of her small body and picked her up. She was several times lighter than his fishing net and he wondered briefly if it was due to her diet of squid. Then he walked stiffly back to his shelter, his legs no longer feeling as invigorated as they had been when they were in the water.

He glanced down at the unconscious mermaid in his arms and the first thing his eyes fell on were the fins on either side of her head. They caught and reflected the moonlight even more evidently than the skin between his fingers and toes had.

Did he have them too?

Carlos placed Pia as lightly as he could on his meager cot before sitting down beside her. Then he brought his hands up to his head to feel for any unnatural appendages.

To his utmost horror, his fingers met what seemed like stiff spines sticking out and smoothed back on either side of his head where his ears should've been. The same thin layer of skin stretched between each of the spines, effectively giving him fans that spanned up to half the length of his face. How was he ever going to get another human, let alone a girl, look at him the same way ever again? How had his body ended up changing in this way?

And was he ever going to change back?

As if in answer to his last question, an indescribable sensation rippled through him and Carlos immediately lifted his hands up again to feel for his ears.

They were there again!

Carlos gave a laugh of immense relief. He had almost panicked for a moment there. But then he quickly sobered again. If he entered the water a second time, was he going to transform again?

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Carlos knew the large possibility of that happening, but he kept those thoughts where they were and forced his attentions back on the mermaid who had given him the affliction in the first place.

"You healed me, Pia." Carlos said to the unconscious girl. "But at what cost?" He thought back to the the bloodstains in the sand. There was no doubt that they belonged to Pia, but where were her wounds? Maybe it was natural for mermaids to heal faster than other species. However, that didn't explain how she managed to completely mend his wounds as well.

And then turn him into a mermaid. Or was he called a merman?

A soft groan came from Pia and Carlos was shaken out of his thoughts. He looked to see what was wrong and saw that she had turned so she was facing him now, her eyelids beginning to flutter.

She was waking up.

Before he could look away, maroon eyes flickered open, which failed to catch the moonlight so they remained dark and inscrutable. Gazes locking, Carlos felt all sounds around him pull far away.

And everything he had wanted to say left his mind.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>So he had awoken before her. Pia wasn't surprised.<p>

"Stop looking at me like that." She told him, actually disliking how Carlos was so unnaturally quiet. She hated how her voice came out raspy and weak and not at all a voice anyone would listen to.

When he gave no indication of turning away, she turned so that she faced the ceiling. Then she willed herself to get up, groaning in the process. Her body felt like it was now being pierced by a thousand needlefish and her wrist throbbed several times in reminder of the blood she purposely shed for Carlos's wound.

"What did you do to me, Pia?"

She turned her head in surprise at the parallel his question ran to her own thoughts.

"What I…?" The way he asked her made it seem like all her efforts to save his life had been meaningless. "I saved you, you fool."

She coughed in an attempt to clear her throat burning, but to no avail. Instinctively, her eyes turned towards the water.

"I saved you." She said it again, though she wasn't even sure why.

Carlos didn't reply.

Then she made as if to push herself up, but her right arm, the one she had cut, buckled from beneath her and she would've fallen to the ground had Carlos not been there to soften her fall.

"Gotcha." He breathed as she landed almost gracefully into his arms. Pia didn't want to imagine that it almost looked like she meant to do it. "I'm going to assume you can't walk either."

"No, stand me up and I'll do it. My injuries have nothing to do with my legs."

Surprisingly, he didn't make a word of complaint or voice any doubt he might've had on her decision. He simply stood up and placed her down on her feet like she'd asked him too. Since when did he start listening to others?

"Thanks." She rasped, sounding almost uncertain about saying the word out loud to him.

Silently, the two traversed the small space between the shelter and the beach in the unmasked light of the moon. Pia led their two-person procession, supported by a combination of will and stubborn pride. Despite her strong front, however, severe pain shot up her legs each time she took a step. When it took them more than several minutes to reach the water less than halfway, Carlos must've decided then that they weren't going anywhere at this rate.

Pia felt his hand lightly tap her shoulder.

Realizing her stubbornness was only keeping her longer away from salvation, she didn't hesitate to climb back into his arms and allow herself to be carried to the water. They were now moving much faster than her pitiful hobble and soon Pia could practically taste the water from where Carlos stood.

She shifted her weight in his arms, expecting to be put down, but the fisherman didn't budge. Right when she was about to start squirming, he began wading into the lake.

Pia kept her eye trained on the water, but she couldn't ignore her sudden awareness of the man who held her. His skin… when had it felt so substantial against her own?

The water was up to his waist now and her toes were no more than a few inches above the surface.

"Put me down, Carlos." She whispered. A gust of wind threatened to blow her words away, but Carlos heard them and did as she requested nonetheless.

Her form changed as she touched the lake's sandy bottom. Then, almost tentatively, she turned towards the man beside her, preparing to thank him, when she was struck hard with astonishment at the sight that met her eyes.

"You…" Unable to help herself, Pia lifted both hands up to touch the fins on either side of his head. "How…?"

"I don't know." He answered her simply. "I was kind of wondering the same thing."

A single thought was running through Pia's mind. She had used her own blood to heal his injuries and it had done the job, but to change his entire being? It just wasn't possible. And yet, here he was, standing before her with fins just like her.

It was frightening.

She backed away, jerking her hands back like she'd been burned. In that moment, her eyes locked with his and, even though the light was dim, she saw a shadow pass his face.

His mouth opened and Pia braced herself for a verbal explosion. However, none came.

"Do I disgust you?" He asked her quietly.

"What…"

Pia stared at the man- no, the merman before her. Disgusting? How could he ask her that when he was beautiful?

"No. You don't. Actually-!" Shaking her head to organize her muddled thoughts, Pia spoke up again in a firmer voice. "I mean... no... I'm just having a hard time accepting the fact that my blood changed your body. It's not supposed to do that usually."

"Your blood?" His expression changed to one of shock.

"Yes, I…" Pia took a breath. Trying to put what she'd done in words was harder than she thought. "I used your knife to cut my wrist and… fed you the blood."

"Fed me…"

Her cheeks betrayed her as they grew warm from the embarrassment of repeating her words. "Yes, I fed you. Don't ask me how."

He licked his lips, probably on instinct, as he figured it out in his head, but it was enough to cause mortification to shoot up Pia's stomach.

A blanket of silence settled on the two of them.

"I don't know if I should thank you or not." Carlos said finally, breaking the momentary hush.

"What do you mean?" Pia didn't like what his words seemed to imply.

"You've changed me, Pia."

His words made her feel unhappy for some reason. "Do you hate this that much?" She found herself whispering the question.

"I... don't know."

His answer sparked something inside her. It sparked a flare of anger.

"Why can't you appreciate what you already have?" When she spoke, her voice quiet, low with contained fury. "Is being a merman so bad? Is being able to swim faster and better in the water such a bad thing? Is having fins so repulsive?" When Carlos didn't say anything, and just stared at her wordlessly, something in her snapped and she started a storm of words so fierce that Pia herself was surprised at its violence.

"Everything goes right for you! You think everything is _supposed_ to go right for you! Every time I see you, you're always smiling so happily while you talk about how great your life is. You talk about what you have like everyone automatically gets them in life. You're always taking everything for granted and you make me sick! You make me sick, you stupid fisherman!" Her voice cracked.

"You'll never understand me. And I'll never understand you. That's the truth." Pia was treading water now, distancing herself more and more from the man who could only stare at her with such an unreadable expression. "Be glad you have a family to go back to, Carlos. I've always been jealous."

Unable to remain in his gaze any longer, Pia turned and dove into the water.

What she hadn't expected, however, was for Carlos to dive in soon after.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>He was numb when he jumped in after her, her words cutting into him like tens of thousands of relentless knives.<p>

However, entering the water had been like slipping on a new piece of skin. It renewed him and, for the moment, washed away the bulk of Pia's cruel words.

He hurtled forward with quick, focused strokes and, after more than several minutes, Carl realized that he no longer struggled for air. His lung capacity felt like it had increased by tenfold.

What had she called him? A merman.

Far away, Pia's lithe form was hard to discern in the water, but the fresh trail of air bubbles she left behind was enough to lead him to her hideout. In the midst of tailing her, Carlos's mind began to wander.

He remembered the way she held his fins so gently at first, her eyes widened in perfect awe. In that instant, he had been met with a natural impulse that reverberated throughout his body several times more powerfully than what he experienced yesterday.

Again, he had been wracked with the impulse to touch her, kiss her, pull her into him and claim her for all she was worth. There was nothing else in this mixture of desires besides total lust. There was no sane or logical thought.

It didn't matter that he hardly knew her!

But then his conscience had kicked in and his mind was thrown into conflict. He wasn't an animal. How could he even _think_ that way? What was making him lose control like this? It was as if every cell in his being was calling for her, calling for more than just her fingers on his flesh. And then, in the midst of fighting his own inner demons, Pia had pulled away, instantly breaking the spell.

Watching her tail disappear into a fissure, Carlos waited a few seconds before swimming in after her.

After pulling away, Pia told him that she'd been jealous of him. All this time.

Diving in deep and propelling himself smoothly through the craggy hole, Carlos caught up just in time to see Pia's tail disappear as she surfaced and hoisted herself up on to an outcrop of rock.

She said he would never understand her. Or so she claimed.

Carlos wanted to laugh. A life of insecurity and doubt. That was the kind of life he'd had as a child, as an adolescent, then finally as an adult. Was that what Pia was looking for? He seriously doubted that.

Since his father passed away, many things had gone wrong. But, this time...

Carlos braced himself before drifting silently to the water's surface.

He was going to set things right.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>Pia could hardly keep her thoughts in one place as she threw a small tantrum on the cavern's rocky floor. It consisted of a myriad of flailing arms and agitated, wet slaps of her tail against solid rock.<p>

When she finally decided that she had exerted enough energy into her fit of rage, she rolled over on to her back and closed her eyes in silent meditation.

She had gone said it! Pia was positively mortified just thinking back to her earlier shouting spree. The thoughts that she always kept inside whenever she saw the fisherman, she had gone ahead and told him everything! Even the part about being jealous. Truly, it had been a secret that only Sakuya and Shino had known.

Breathing as calmly as she could, Pia let her mind flip through the entirety of her history concerning the fisherman and realized that he actually occupied a good majority of her memories.

When had it all begun? The jealousy. She really wanted to know.

As if on cue, her memories flashed back to the day of her sixth birthday, three days after she met Carlos for the first time.

The day she met his father.

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><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>It was early in the morning. The sun hadn't risen yet.<p>

When it was close to rising, however, a newly six-year old Pia tiptoed out of her room and made her way to nearest window.

She was going to lift the shades and catch the first rays of sun that would officially mark the beginning of her sixth year of life. The window was rather high up so she had to compromise with a small stool. Once she was in position, Pia placed one hand reverently on the curtain's cloth.

Then flipped it up expecting to catch the bright rays of the sun with her scales so that she could properly hail the start of the new day.

Except she had an unexpected witness and Pia found herself staring into the eyes of a boy.

The fisherman's boy.

He stood there, staring right back at her, looking as if he had initially been waiting for something or someone. But who? Was it her? Pia really didn't like the sound of that.

Then his eyes suddenly lit up and he turned away from her to call out in an excited voice, "Father!"

Father?

Pia watched as a man with blue-green hair scraping past his shoulders walked into sight. And he was surely a sight to behold. Pia nearly fell from the window in the midst of watching him.

Everything about him made the buried memories in her head tingle, from his wild, briny stubble to the tell-tale fisherman's garb he donned. Pia could never truly figure out what why she felt that way until much later, when the embedded memories in her head became a little more loose.

"Carlos, my son. How are you doing today?" The man patted his boy on the head. "What are you doing over here? I thought I told you to wait near the village pond."

"I was." The boy pouted. "But..." Then he looked at the window where Pia stood stock still, still unable to tear her eyes away from the fisherman himself.

The fisherman turned his head to look at her and Pia thought she saw a shadow cross his face, but owed it to a trick of the light. Could he possibly know what she was?

"Who's that, Carlos? Your new friend?" But it seemed the fisherman knew that probably wasn't the case.

"No! She's the one who ran away from me yesterday and I don't know why!" The boy exclaimed in as loud a voice as possible, so loud in fact that it scared Pia enough to duck out from under the curtains and scamper as fast as she could to her room.

"Hey! Come back!"

Pia heard Carlos's voice calling after her, but she ignored it as she clambered over the edge of her bed, which was a sizable tub of fresh water, and dove into its contents.

She stayed there until she heard the gentle tones of Shino's voice and then the slightly grating on of the fisherman that reminded her of sand on a beach. They were talking about her. Pia knew because she couldn't think of any other reason why the fisherman would come into the Miyako Inn.

Her curiosity eventually got the better of her and she slid out quietly from her tub. Hopping on her tail as quietly as she could to the doorway, Pia peered out at the two conversing adults.

As she tried to listen in, her body dried rapidly and her legs were back before long.

They were just standing there in the middle of the room, talking. Shino was nodding and smiling politely as she listened to what the fisherman had to say. Then the fisherman's eyes flickered right over to where Pia was spying on them, which caused her to whip her head back around the corner, shocked that he had discovered her trying to eavesdropp so quickly.

"Pia, come here." Shino was calling her out. "Carlos's father would like to meet you."

Shino was calling her out!

Pia shouted, as loudly as her lungs could manage, "NO!"

"Please, Pia? He says your scales looked very pretty in the light and he'd like to see them again."

"No."

But Shino could hear the weakening resolve in her voice and she called her again.

However, the fisherman was the one who gave the final blow. "I'll give you all the squid you can eat!"

Pia was outside before he could finish his sentence. Darn it! Inside, she fumed at herself for being so quick to fall for that kind of trick. Her love for squid had become her downfall.

"There you are, Pia. I'd like you to meet Carlos's father."

"Where's my squid?" Pia demanded, refusing to let the fisherman forget their deal.

"I'll have some for you tomorrow. I still need to go catch them." He gave her a smile and Pia almost fell for it, but she reminded herself that he was a fisherman. He had no reason to be nice to her.

"What do you want from me?" She demanded.

"Just wanted to see the new addition to our town. And it seems she's a special one."

"What do you mean?" But Pia knew he knew.

However, the fisherman didn't say it. Instead, he patted her on the head like he had his son. "I'll have your squid by tomorrow, Pia." Then he turned around and left. His son was nowhere to be seen.

"Why did he come in here, Shino?" Pia asked finally, after nearly several minutes of just staring at the doorway. She touched the top of her head. Though his hand was gone already, she could still feel it there, ruffling her hair in such a familiar way that she felt... almost pleased.

"He just wanted to see you, Pia. And I'm sure Carlos felt the same way too." Shino's eyes were twinkling and, years later, Pia still wouldn't understand how anyone's eyes could shine like that.

Pia made a face. "No way." Then she turned and started marching back to her tub. "I will go clean up my mess now."

"Okay, Pia, whatever you say." Shino teased. Then she took her usual place behind the counter, pen scratching on notebook once more.

As Pia brought out her mop to clean up the puddles she'd left on the floor, she couldn't keep from pausing for a moment to touch her head one last time. Was this what it felt like to have a father?

Pia thought about it for a moment.

Maybe it was.

She was looking forward to getting a batch of fresh squid tomorrow.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

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><p>He wondered if she was sleeping or if she was simply... thinking.<p>

Seated on the rocky ground with one leg stretched out in front of him and the other bent at the knee to support his forearm, Carlos watched Pia's chest rise and fall with each breath.

Water continued to drip from his hair, the only thing that echoed in the vast cavern.

She looked peaceful.

"Why did I come after you?" He whispered so that only he could hear. "You've insulted me in every way possible and then swam off. Tell me why I would chase after a girl like you." Resting his forehead against his wrist, he felt the spines of his fins pressing against the skin.

Nothing was making sense to him anymore and it was all her fault.

Then, while he was wallowing in his own confusion, Pia opened her eyes.

"Y... you!"

He lifted his head just enough to see her angry complexion.

"You followed me." The accusation in her voice brought him to speak.

"Who said I couldn't?" He got to his feet and Pia mirrored him. He saw her edging toward her dekash. "You accused me of things I have no control over and then swam off like you were right."

"That's because everything I said _was_ right, you stupid-"

Something in him snapped. "Shut up!" His outburst stunned her into silence. Angrier than he had ever been before, Carlos knew he had her attention now. Words that were once buried in the deep in his conscious, and had compiled over the years, poured themselves out as bitter words.

"Know what? I'm sick of you too. I'm sick of you always calling me a fisherman and not by my real name. I'm sick of you telling me how right you think you are. I'm sick of you holding a grudge against me just because I have a sister and I _had_ a father. But did you think my life was full of roses?" He took a step toward her, though she didn't budge. "When my father died, things changed. I suddenly didn't have anyone, no mother no father, just me and a little sister I didn't know how to take care of. I didn't even have a guardian like Shino to look after me. So what do you think I had to do? I had to keep my family business alive and figure out how to take care of my sister all by myself. Did you think you were the only who's ever felt alone?"

Their faces were inches apart now and Carlos realized she smelled faintly of something briny, something that stirred a distant memory. It was distracting. He wanted to intimidate her, provoke her, and push her to her limits. But his last question had come out lacking that energy.

Because her scent was driving him mad.

"I have _been_ alone." Her voice penetrated his haze of growing instability, allowing him to focus in on the resentment in her words. "That's the difference between us. Even if you say you had no parents, you still wouldn't understand. I remember..." She closed her eyes for a moment to breath in a shuddering breath. "I remember being alone even when I had a mother."

Her words caught him off guard. He hadn't expected her to mention anything concerning her past in front of him. "So you left her for Sharance?" He questioned her. "You left your home behind?"

"Is that all you can see from this?" She hissed. "_I _was the one abandoning others? You fool…"

"Then tell me!" Carlos demanded exasperatedly. "Tell me so I can see what you want me to see! I can't ever understand you if I don't know anything!"

"Why should I? I don't know you at all. There isn't anything to understand." Pia was so unyielding that Carlos wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake some human sense into her. He had had enough of her stubbornness!

"Then fix me." He showed Pia his webbed fingers. "Change me back."

Her expression darkened. "Do you hate being a merman that much?" She asked him fiercely.

"If you won't tell me, then fix me. Otherwise, I'll endure this, however long it takes."

They stood like that for several minutes, neither willing to back down from the other. However, her scent was starting to distract him again...

Pia walked forward in an attempt to push past him.

"You can't shake me off that easily." Carlos said as he caught her arm and then tightened his grip enough to let her know he meant it. However, he realized his mistake too late.

Almost immediately, his senses honed in on the delicateness of her skin. It was soft under his touch and he noticed that she had no hard muscle in her arm, which was surprising considering her skill with large weapons. His grip hadn't relaxed, but he was holding her now with a completely different intent, in such a way that she froze under his hold.

She could see something in his eyes had changed. Her own had gone wide with a mixture of surprise, fear, and...

Carlos was surprised to see the desire in there that mirrored his own. And it must've frightened her to feel this way because she jerked her arm away from him and broke free. Then she used the moment to keep walking until she reached the water's edge.

He saw her swallow hard before she said, "Catch me in five minutes... and I'll tell you everything." Then she was gone, her dive leaving minute ripples on the lake's surface.

Carlos shook his head in wonder at her boldness. What a challenge! What a quick recovery from their awkward moment.

He liked it.

Carlos approached the water's edge. If this was what it took to learn the truth, then he was going to take on this challenge and win.

The last sound in the cavern was of Carlos plunging in.

Time was ticking.

* * *

><p>AN: Will he make it?

Only the next chapter will tell.


	5. Chapter 5

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Rune Factory franchise.

Enjoy.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>Carlos was fast.<p>

Pia flitted past countless fish with strong flicks of her tail. But that wasn't enough. The man behind her looked closer than ever and Pia was forced to admit that if she didn't lose him soon he was going to catch up. The waters parted for her as she swam furiously for her destination, which was a large patch of seaweed in the distance. Her goal in sight, Pia smiled.

No matter how fast Carlos was, he would never find his way through this type of obstacle. No fish could do it on their first try.

Pia braced herself as she swam closer and closer to the seaweed. A split second before she dove in, a small voice in the back of her head asked a very good question.

_Did Carlos count as a fish_?

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>It felt so good to be in the water now.<p>

Carlos couldn't compare the feeling to anything else because nothing _could_ compare to the sensation that enveloped his entire being as he propelled powerfully through the water. The closest thing that came to it was when his father first pushed him from the pier into Dragon Lake. The way the water just seemed to catch him had been unforgettable. But now…

Now it seemed like it was _caressing _him, parting for him as he followed the distinct trail of bubbles left behind by Pia.

Left behind by Pia, who was suddenly nowhere to be seen!

Snapping alert, Carlos saw that the mermaid had somehow disappeared. Her trail of bubbles ended here where he floated, not a single scale to be seen.

In her stead was a wall of seaweed, shimmering mysteriously against the moonlight.

She must've gone in there, Carlos mused. So she could slow him down.

He leaned forward and looked for all-the-world like he was about to charge right in when he hesitated.

But this was Pia he was talking about. There was no way she would lead him here _just_ to slow him down. There had to be something else…

Carlos studied the seaweed. Then he smirked.

Pia, Pia, Pia, she always thought she was so smart. Always thinking that she could trap him in all sorts of things and get away with it, she would never pass up the chance to have him make a fool of himself in front of her. So…

Why didn't he convince her right now that he wasn't one?

Without another thought, Carlos dove with all his might into the wall of seaweed and successfully entangled himself.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>What in the world was he doing?<p>

Pia tried to figure this out as she spied on the hapless fisherman from her vantage point in the forest of seaweed.

Had he just swum into the seaweed… on purpose?

Pia shook her head.

No… no, this was Carlos she was talking about. There was no way an idiot like him could've had a bigger plan beyond swimming headlong into the seaweed to try and chase after her. But, then again he could've…

Pia snorted softly.

Who was she trying to convince? He had fallen for her trick and that was that. Satisfied at seeing him so helpless, she took her time swimming into his line of sight. She positioned herself close enough so she could talk to him, but far enough so that she was just out of reach.

"Five minutes are going to be over soon," she taunted. She even waggled her fins at him for good measure. "Maybe I'll go easier on you next time, if there even is one."

He writhed in the seaweed with such a foolish look on his face that Pia couldn't keep from giggling so hard that she didn't notice when his expression changed. She marveled at how well her plan had gone, never thinking that perhaps… just perhaps… it had gone a little _too_ well.

He mumbled something and Pia stopped laughing. For years to come—no, for the rest of her life, Pia would always remember this moment in time. She would remember this day; the day she underestimated Carlos the fisherman.

She blinked. "What did you-?"

"Gotcha."

Faster than any fish she'd ever met Carlos lunged forward and trapped her in his arms.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>The darkness had helped in hiding his treachery.<p>

"Gotcha!" He barely had Pia in his arms before she began to thrash. "Dude! Quit it!" He had to squeeze tight and, in doing so, pulled her flush up against him, leaving his head nowhere to go but the dip between her neck and shoulder. Now all of a sudden his lips were pressed against her skin. Her smooth, soft, sensual….

In that moment, Pia stopped struggling.

Carlos froze. Did she sense the turn his thoughts had taken? His uncertainty distracted him into loosening his hold on her ever so slightly.

And then she pressed her hips into him and his brain stopped thinking altogether. The motion drew a low groan from his throat that he tried to bite back. He felt like he was being _pulled_ into her. Touching her made him tingle. It made him forget his surroundings. It drove him crazy.

He heard her sigh, which made him realize how close her lips were to his ear. And then he felt her hands around his shoulders, tangling into his hair. How…? Since when had she slipped her arms out?

She grazed the tip of his ear with her lips and then pressed them to his temple.

In a flash he was against the top of her windpipe ready to kiss and taste her to his content. He _growled_. There was no more hiding his desire for her. The way her fingers played with his hair, her hips moving in lazy circles like undulating rope, and her lips parting against his skin, the way they were going now, Carlos wasn't sure if he could hold back any long—

Something tugged at his leg.

Carlos froze again, only this time in shock. Staring straight at Pia, he was reminded him of someone who was slowly waking from a dream. Her gaze had been blank for a full second before some kind of realization dawned in her eyes and she flicked her tail and shot straight for the surface.

He could only stare after her as she swam further and further away from him, a single question burning in his mind.

What now?

Carlos glared down at the thing that was wrapped around his leg.

Why the hell had he actually gotten tangled in the stupid seaweed?

Clumsily, he reached down and tried untangling the first of two knots on his leg. He was barely halfway through the first one when his situation dawned on him.

He was running out of air.

Carlos cursed in his head. That made it the second time today! What was Pia going to think of him now? No… Carlos shook his head. That wasn't important right now. Right now he had to focus on untying himself fast enough before his vision started to blur and his fingers slipped and he began to—!

A shadow blocked the moonlight.

Before Carlos could look up to see what was happening, he felt two very familiar hands grab his fins.

"You need air right?" He heard Pia say. Then his head was tilted upward and Pia kissed him to breathe oxygen into him. If he had been counting right, then that would've been their second unofficial one…

During their exchange, Carlos found himself gazing into Pia's eyes for what felt like a very long time. Perhaps she was thinking the same question as he. How were they going to approach each other after this? Like acquaintances? Like friends? Or maybe…. something more?

Just as the last thought was crossing his mind, Pia broke away and spiraled up toward the surface. The pressure of her lips lingered despite everything. He watched her, his mind a blank, as Pia broke the surface to breathe. And then shot straight back down to his side.

She was underneath him in a matter of seconds and, when he looked down, he was shocked to see her picking out the last two knots around his leg. The moonlight illuminated her face again and he saw her tightly knit eyebrows. She was exerting effort and not only for untying the knots, but also in a way for him. Gradually, the surprise in his chest was replaced by something even more unbidden.

Where his heart steadily beat, he began to feel warmth.

Pia finished and, drifting up until she was level with his eyes, she studied him for a moment. What she was looking for, he didn't know. Once she was done, however, he figured she must've been satisfied with whatever she found because the next moment she gestured with her head towards the dark shore of the island where his shelter was.

When Carlos nodded his understanding, she flicked her tail in the direction of their destination and left him in a flurry of bubbles.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>Who was Carlos to her?<p>

Pia shook her head discontentedly as she lay on the wet sand of the beach. She didn't know what to call her relationship with the fisherman anymore. Opponents? Rivals? She closed her eyes and the moment of their embrace flashed through her mind. Rivals didn't hold each other like that; she was very sure.

His lips… She remembered how they pressed against her neck almost too vividly, how her tail had curled with pleasure at the roughness of his hands on her hip...

She heard a splash near the shore and a soft gasp for air. Instead of turning to look, she continued watching the dark sky. The moon was bright today.

"We need to talk." Suddenly, Carlos was blocking the sky from view and Pia found herself gazing up into his shadowed face. "…dude." He added as an afterthought.

Pia didn't like the smile that threatened to tug at her lips. Since when did she find that phrase even remotely funny? "I am not a dude." She said. "_Dude_." She didn't mean it as a joke and, to her surprise, he started laughing. Although his laugh wasn't obnoxious like she'd always thought, she couldn't help feeling like she was being laughed at.

"I'm not laughing at _you_."

Pia widened her eyes in another wave of surprise. Were her thoughts really that obvious?

Carlos sighed as he moved away to sit down beside her. "I'm laughing at what you said. That's the first time you I heard you say 'dude', like ever."

She said nothing in return and for a while let the silence sit between them. When he didn't say anything for the longest time, Pia spoke quietly, "I said I would tell you everything so I will start at the very beginning." She breathed in deeply before she began, "The first thing I remember about my childhood is how lonely it was."

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>The ocean was vast.<p>

Pia could hardly remember where her clan last settled down and even then it was pointless because the clan could have migrated since she left. There was, however, one thing that would never change, something that her clan hated her for even though it was outside her control.

Being fatherless.

Although the memory was hazy, she still remembered some things about her mother; flowing white hair, gentle voice, swift hands. Her hair reminded Pia of florescent pearls. What was the color of her eyes again? Pia wished she could remember, but to no avail. She could only recall the sadness in them as Pia told her mother she was leaving the clan.

_"Please." This was first time Pia heard her mother speak this way. She sounded so bleak. "At least listen to your mother one last time before your journey."_

_ Pia kept her back to her, willing herself not to turn around, though later on she wished she had because maybe she might've remembered the color of her eyes. "Yes, mother?"_

_ "No matter how far you go or how long you are gone, your mother will always be with you in spirit and in blood. You are always welcome back to me, Pia. Remember that."_

Pia closed her eyes as she transitioned into the next memory. "I have."

* * *

><p>The very first time they met, Sakuya gave Pia something very important.<p>

_ "What do we have here?" A hand petted Pia's hair. "Little girl, what are you doing out here on the shore?"_

_ The hand petted her hair again and it felt very good, so good that Pia didn't feel like answering right away. That was, until a wave reached high enough to splash her toes. _

_ "Fish!" A different voice cried out in childish glee. "Mother, she's a fish!"_

_ The hand left her and Pia wished so badly to be touched again that she raised her head in order to ask the hand's owner to put it back on her head. When she looked up, however, she found herself at a loss for words. The hand belonged to a human; black hair, a shade darker than midnight, swallowed the sun so that the rays encircled the woman's head like a golden halo. _

_ "She's awake!" A girl who looked like a smaller version of the woman jumped up and down in excitement. _

_ "Shhh, Sakuya not so loud. You'll startle her."The woman chided the girl. _

_ Sakuya, however, paid no heed and, before long, her energy began to infect Pia and soon she was fidgeting with excitement too. Within a minute, her legs were dry again and she stood up to meet hands with Sakuya; they danced and leaped and played in the sand until Pia's heart soared with joy and her legs could hardly keep up with her body. They played until the morning grew warmer and the woman decided it was time to call Sakuya home. _

_ Pia halted in her tracks and simply stood there, watching Sakuya run with her boundless energy over to the woman. How could she tell them that she…? "I have nowhere to go." The words came out so meek and small that Pia still wondered to this day how either of the humans heard her, but they had. _

_ Sakuya whipped her head around so quickly that Pia almost flinched, but she held her ground and the two of them locked gazes for a time. Sakuya looked as if she was thinking very hard, eyebrows drawn firmly together, her mouth pressed in a hard line. That was why Pia wasn't prepared for what happened next. _

_ Sakuya suddenly turned heel and ran off! _

_ Visibly taken aback, Pia stared after the girl in confusion. Had Pia done something wrong? Did Sakuya hate her now? She was about to panic when the woman with long, black hair walked up to her and rested a palm on her head like before. _

_ "Don't worry, little one. She'll be back soon. If I'm not mistaken, she's run off to get something from home." _

_ Pia met the woman's eyes. They were a soft grey and Pia liked them even more than her hair. She wished they would always look at her like that. _

_ Sakuya came sprinting back in a whirlwind of sand and excitement. She held a long pole with a strange head of many grey strings attached to the bottom. Pia supposed it was a spear, only the head wasn't sharp enough. It looked more like a stick with hair. _

_ "Here!" Sakuya shoved the pole into her hands with the head touching the sand. _

_ She tried wielding it like a spear, pointing the head up toward the sky, but, after the stick's grey hair kept flopping around and throwing her off balance, she finally had to ask, "What is it?"_

_ "It's for cleaning!" Sakuya told her confidently, before adding a little bossily, "You're going to be working for us now."_

_ Pia stared at her for a moment, wondering where she learned to speak with so much authority. Sakuya looked for all the world like she wasn't taking no for an answer, but even if that was the case Pia wasn't sure she would've refused her anyway. _

_ The woman seemed to be scolding Sakuya now, saying something about being polite when speaking to others. _

_ "I will do it." _

_ The long black haired human looks at her in surprise. _

_ "I said I will do it. I will work for you and you feed me. Squid!" Pia grinned widely. _

_ "Please, mother? Please? Please, please, please, please-?"_

_ "Quiet down, Sakuya." _

_ Sakuya immediately silenced herself, though she waited expectantly, tip-toeing so that she could gaze at the woman with wide, pleading eyes. Pia tried to copy her, but she wobbled too much. _

_ Finally, the woman knelt down so that they were eye-to-eye before she placed a hand on Pia's head and smiled. "What is your name, little girl?"_

_ "Pia." _

_ At this, her smile grew even wider, adding wrinkles to the edges of her eyes, which Pia thought made her look even better. "What a beautiful name. It's very nice to meet you. My name is Shino. From now on, Pia, you are hereby hired to be our bath caretaker. And your payment will be: to become a part of our family and eat squid with us during dinner times. Sound good?"_

That day, Sakuya gave her more than just a mop. She gave Pia a purpose to live.

* * *

><p><em>~o~~o~~o~<em>

* * *

><p>"Your purpose in life is to mop bathhouse floors and eat squid?" Carlos burst out into laughter before ducking to avoid a handful of sand.<p>

"Stupid fisherman!" Pia yelled as she started scraping together another ball. "You spend your days sitting and pointing a stick at the water all day. How silly!"

He was quiet for a moment, the full meaning of her words taking some time to settle in his brain and then… "Come here, you!"

Pia squealed in surprise as he suddenly threw himself at her and the sand in her hand went flying everywhere. "Let go! Let go!" She yelled. Her legs had grown back not too long ago so she was kicking him along with elbowing his sides and pulling his hair.

"Ow! Ouch! I'm just playing with you, geez!" His playful mood ruined by her rough housing, Carlos released her and then promptly lay back on the sand, exasperated. He was definitely waking up tomorrow with new bruises.

"Hmph."

Hearing this sound come from her, Carlos glanced over. Pia was now lying on her back beside him less than an arm's distance away, closer than he expected. His eyes alighted on her expression and he ended up staring a little longer than appropriate. Did Pia know how cute she looked when she pouted?

"Well?" Pia demanded as she turned her head to glance sharply at him.

His sudden exposure to deep maroon threw him off kilter. "Huh?"

"You definitely have lots more questions for me. Go ahead. Ask me." She spoke those last words with an air of tiredness.

Carlos let his eyes stray from her depthless maroon to her pink hair. He liked how the moonlight tinged the edges with a gentle glow. How would it feel trailing through his fingers?

"Carlos?"

Her uncertain voice brought him out of his reverie and, since it was suddenly impossible for him to look her in the eye, he turned his head to gaze pointedly at the sky. "Why do you always run away from me?"

"I do not like fisherman." She replied without hesitation.

"Oh." Her words disappointed him more than he let on.

"But…" That single word filled him with a strange hope. Funny how much he craved acceptance these days. "Your father promised me something that… made him different. He promised to bring me squid every day."

Her words immediately made him recall an early memory, however vague, of fishing beside his father. But what made this moment unique had been the large batch of squid in his father's bucket. What was all that for? All his father would tell him when he asked was: For a treat.

"I don't know why he was so nice to me, but it was good food so I accepted him. I even… wished that he were _my_ father."

Carlos whipped his head around to look at her in complete shock.

"Yes, Carlos." Pia turned her head to smile a little helplessly at him before she looked away. "I acted the way I did today because I was jealous."

"Jealous?" Now he was just dumbly repeating her words. His brain just couldn't comprehend her words fast enough.

"Why can't I have a father like yours? Why are you so lucky? I asked myself that-."

"I dunno about that, Pia." Carlos muttered. "While I knew what it was like to have a father… I also found out what it was like to lose one. And lemme tell you. It doesn't feel..." A heavy weight pressed into his chest as he spoke and try as he might, he couldn't seem to swallow down the pressure that suddenly built up against his throat. "It doesn't—"

"It's okay. You don't have to say anymore if you don't want to."

He heard her shift and suddenly she was leaning over him, long wisps of hair tickling the right side of his face, her eyes gentle and sad. The pressure behind his throat vanished instantly and in its place began the rapid beating of his heart.

"Forgive me. I did not mean to remind you of that time. I…" She stopped mid-sentence as her eyes widened in surprise.

Carlos reached up and lifted his hand to her hair. He closed his eyes as he played with the pink ribbons of hair that filtered through his fingers. Their silkiness came as no surprise since he'd seen them billowing out like tendrils of smoke while underwater. If only Pia knew just how much her nearness could affect him. He opened his eyes to accost the maroon gazing so enquiringly at him. "Has anyone ever told you that your hair's the same color as spring blossoms?"

She blinked. Slowly. "… Shino has."

Not expecting that sort of answer, or any sort of answer for that matter, Carlos decided to take on a playful tone. Otherwise, he might do something else that would only confuse things further between them. "Damn." He cursed softly under his breath . "I was hoping I'd be first. At least I'm the second."

Pia's lips twitched. "Actually Sakuya was the second."

At this Carlos sighed loudly, removing his hand from her cascade of hair, and rolling over so that his back was facing her. His actions had never screamed _retreat_ as loudly as they did today. "Whatever. That blows dude." If he threw Pia off with his actions, he didn't care. What Pia could never know was that he had turned away to hide the look of complete and utter embarrassment that was plastered everywhere on his face. _Spring blossoms_? What in the world had driven him to ask that!?

Then Carlos heard a sound that he never dreamed to hear in his lifetime, a sound he never imagined would be for him.

Pia laughed and a shiver ghosted along Carlos's spine as if her voice had become tangible and touched him there. "You're so strange, Carlos. So… _funny_ like… like…" She went quiet, probably thinking very, very hard. "A blowfish!"

"_What?_" Carlos sat up and twisted around to stare at her like she'd grown two heads. "Of all the stupid fish in the river, you pick the _blowfish_!? Not cool!"

Instantly, Pia's eyebrow angled inwards. "Fish are not _stupid_!" She cried, scooting forward to poke a finger in his chest.

"I didn't mean it that way!" He growled as he grabbed the hand invading his personal space. Whatever he wanted to say next, however, died at his lips when he realized how close they'd come again. Too close. She radiated no heat at all, cold and cooling to the touch, and yet why did he burn so much from just holding her hand?

And her hands were so tiny. If he wasn't careful, they could easily slip from his grasp and then there'd be nothing left to cool off the heat building in his cheeks or the unexpected inflammation of his chest and neck and throat. He wanted to tug her hand to his face and caress her delicate fingers over his lips so that the sudden, searing urge to press his lips against hers could go away.

But, he didn't. Instead, he simply held her gaze, which had sobered from sensing his change in demeanor.

"Carlos." She whispered.

He closed his eyes and had to fight a shudder. His name sounded good coming from her like that.

"What's wrong?" She continued, her eyes so wide and innocent. But was she really that innocent? He suddenly recalled ear-grazing lips, roving hands, and the firm press of scales. No, under that wide gaze of her existed something wild. She was a mermaid after all, non-human with non-human instincts. Perhaps he could experience that wildness again someday.

"Just not today…" He murmured.

"What did you say?" She blinked.

"I said: Just _go to bed_." And then Carlos lightly pushed her hand away. "Only a few more hours 'til dawn. I'm wiped."

"Oh."

Was that all she had to say? He glanced up to try catch her expression, but she had shifted so that her eyes were hidden from the moonlight. Feeling like he'd wronged her somehow, he called out to her, "Pia?"

Dark maroon suddenly came into full view, forcibly jumpstarting his heart again. "We still have matters to settle. Even if we understand each other better now, you still are a threat to Mr. King."

At that, Carlos groaned. "Oh come on, Pia. Can't we just leave this stuff for tomorrow? The last thing I wanna do is argue with you when I'm exhausted." He picked himself up. "And in case you haven't noticed, I'm practically naked and freezing."

In perfect reaction to his words, Pia flushed such a bright red that he had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from laughing. "Al-alright!" She looked pointedly away from his body. "We can talk after you rest." And with that she stood up and turned to walk briskly back to the water's edge.

Feeling a little unsatisfied at her speedy departure, he almost called out for her to wait, but stopped himself. What was he even going to ask her if she waited? To stay? Spend the night onshore? As he watched her leave, his thoughts and emotions fell into conflict.

His brain told him that letting her leave was sensible, that they both needed this time to think. And yet his heart wanted the polar opposite. In the end, all he could do was watch as she walked away and dove gracefully into the water, her skin turning to scale a second after she penetrated the river's surface.

Minutes later, as Carlos lay on his cot staring up at the roof of his shack, he thought back to Pia's words. "We understand each other better now, you say." He murmured. "But… what about me? What if I still don't understand you?" Closing his eyes with that last question in mind, Carlos tossed and turned for the rest of the time under the brightening sky.

* * *

><p>AN: I think I spend more of my time apologizing to readers for updating late than I do actually writing things... just kidding.

Hope you enjoyed this.

Sincerely,

shoyou100


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